BETHESDA, MD (WUSA9) -- The road turned into a river, as a millions of gallons gushed from a massive broken pipe.
The raging water picked up cars, and threatened lives. People had to be rescued by helicopter.
You may remember the incredible video. It happened ten years ago on River Road in Bethesda, Md.
WUSA9's Peggy Fox covered the story that day, and has the very latest on what has been done to prevent a replay of that flood.
Imagine being inside one of those cars. It was sunny day, December 23, 2008. Not a rain drop falling. Suddenly, a five-foot water pipe burst at the top of the hill on River Road, just outside the Beltway.
"I remember it was really cold," said Captain Eddie Russell with Montgomery County Fire and Rescue.
Russell was part of the swift water rescue crew that helped get the stranded people into helicopter rescue baskets that day.
"They were scared, fearful for their lives to get into the U.S.Coast Guard basket. Nobody driving in a vehicle ever expects to exit their vehicle via the coast guard basket," said Russell.
But the volume and force of water was so strong, boats could barely get to the those trapped. And forget walking through it.
"It's very similar to what you would have at Great Falls. You know, it was a swift moving water," said Pete Piringer, Montgomery County fire and rescue spokesman who remembers it well.
"Its still, to this day unbelievable. Hopefully it'll be a once in a lifetime event," Piringer said.
So how does a pipe break? Inside the concrete, there are a bunch of hard wires that wrap around, keeping its shape. But, those wires can break.
"One wire break is not a big deal, but when you have tens of wires breaking or even a hundred wires break, the pipe is vulnerable to failure," said Michael Higgens with WSSC.
That's exactly what happened on River Road. But WSSC, the water utility that owned the pipe that failed, has installed a pipe protection system on a hundred miles of its pipes.
"This is an example of the acoustic fiber optics installed in the pipes," said WSSC CEO Carla Reid.
That bunch of acoustic fiber optics float in the water inside the pipes and constantly monitors the pipe's condition.
They "hear" tiny breaks in those hard wires that wrap around the pipes and send out alerts.
"It's allowed us to be extremely proactive," said Reid.
WSSC said the technology has alerted them 20 times to major breaks over the past ten years preventing any repeat incidents and saving millions of dollars.
WSSC said it now has the longest acoustic fiber optic pipe protection system in the country at 102 miles.
It cost $21 million, but saved $42 million, which is what would have been spent to make repairs on breaks that did not happen.
